Google's Antitrust Defense: Trust Us, We Know What's Best

Google turned to its signature travel acquisition, its 2011 purchase of flight shopping engine ITA Software for $700 million, which forms the foundation of Google Flight Search, to kick off its public defense of the European Commission's leveling of antitrust charges against the search engine giant. Amit Singhal, senior vice president of Google Search, led off his defense of Google's practices in a blog post by showing how a consumer searching Google for "flight CDG to SFO" would "get the different options right there on the results page." "It’s a great example of Google’s increasing ability to answer queries directly, saving people a lot of time and effort -- because as [Google CEO] Larry Page said over a decade ago 'the perfect search engine should understand exactly what you mean and give you back exactly what you want.'" Here's the issue in a screenshot: Google's own flight search product dominates the search results real estate for flights from Paris, France to San Francisco while CheapOair, Travelzoo, and BookingBuddy pay for smaller, spon